Wishes and Dreams & Reality
by Azalee
Summary: She wakes up. No, he wakes up.  Homura doesn't care that her name, gender, life and world have changed: her wish hasn't, and Madoka has to be somewhere in this new world. Cheren will look.  Complete; you better believe there are spoilers.  A/N added
1. pugna infinita

**General warning:** This is a crossover between the _Pokémon Black & White_ games and the _Puella Magi_ _ Madoka Magica_ anime that does not actually outright break either canon (except in small ways) — that means **SPOILERS ABOUND FOR BOTH FANDOMS, _ESPECIALLY_ PMMM.** This fic includes sorta genderbending, angst, some mild creepyness because of the canons, hints of femslash/slash/is-that-actually-het? pairings all over the place, teenage hormones, all that stuff **and more**. Japanese names for everything (sorry but there are actually a couple reasons for that), and a couple mythology gags/references to meta stuff.  
>In short, this was written for a kink meme request and because I'm crazy. You have been warned.<p>

(For anyone interested in the specifics of this crossover and additional explanations, long, rambly author's notes are posted on my livejournal at http(colon)(slash)(slash)hiwaba(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)18855(dot)html — take note that they are **spoilery for this fic** and if you're going to read them, you should do so after finishing the story.)

* * *

><p>She wakes up. No, he wakes up.<p>

Cheren's first reflex in the morning is to reach for the bedside table; the glasses are still there — or are they _back_? Homura can't seem to quite remember. All she knows is that she is, beyond a doubt, a boy this time around.

Cheren. The name resembles nothing from her past life, yet the looks are barely different; he still looks exactly like Homura would have if she had cut her hair and worn a jacket to hide her small chest. The glasses are even the same that she used to wear. The conservation of those details is almost laughably absurd when her _gender_ somehow got lost on the way.

What happened? Who wished for this? Did Madoka —

_— where is Madoka?_

Cheren gets dressed, secures around his wrist a watch that he remembers getting for his fifteenth birthday and that Homura knows can manipulate time, and rushes down the stairs. He knows this room, this house, these people — his parents. He knows what day it is, he knows what are those Pokémon creatures the professor mentioned, he knows how big is the world waiting for him beyond Kanoko Town; he's just as excited as Homura is anxious to get moving.

Cheren knows the three other teenagers gathered for the adventure: his childhood friends, Bel and Touko and Touya. Homura only sees that not one of them seems to be a reincarnation of Madoka and there's not a trace of a fifth child in the village, and no one like her in Cheren's memory, either.

She reflexively stops the pain that threatens to seize her, focuses on her heartbeat to prevent its skipping, pushes away the slightest hint of despair before it can even be born - before she remembers that this kind of thing is alright in this world. Her soul is no longer trapped in a crystal; no Soul Gems or Grief Seeds anymore.

And if it seems there is no Madoka either, well, Homura will simply have to search for her. She has to be there, somewhere. Homura made a wish to guarantee this, once upon a time, what seems to be thousands of years ago. She'll find her.


	2. salve, terrae magicae

Just because Cheren was born in this world does not mean he accepts everything as it comes without thinking it over. On the contrary; Touko always says he thinks too much.

(Possibly because, she, for her part, in his humble opinion, thinks much too little. By which he doesn't mean that she's _slow_ or anything, just that... she tends to only think _after_ having acted. And Touya isn't exactly any help with that, or any better himself.)

It might be because of his glasses. He's worn them for as long as he can remember (though now he can also remember a time when he didn't wear them anymore), and their constant presence has always made him feel that he has to look at everything twice as much carefully than his normal-sighted friends. Without the option of fixing his eyes with a magic trick, he had to build up his self-confidence the old-fashioned way, on his own.

(The others — his friends — helped, though. Touya, Touko, Bel. Especially Bel. That was... sort of nice, having friends help him again. Homura had almost forgotten what that was like, it's been so long for her.)

Thus, ever since he was little, he's been observing the world through his thin-framed glasses, carefully, attentively, like Homura used to watch the people pass her by out her hospital room window; growing up a serious, curious child, wondering, musing, theorizing.

This means that when he starts traveling, he doesn't get too many surprises: he'd already figured out much of what to expect... and yet, as he keeps going, because the world is so much larger and wider than a fifteen-year-old can really envision, he keeps discovering new, unfathomed facets to it.

For instance, he quickly picks up a pattern: where Homura's world and the Puellae Magi contract system depended on the balance between happiness and misery, this world seems to be defined by the dichotomy of ideals and truth. One difference is that no one agrees on their statuses — is one side good and the other bad?, are both good but is one better?, if so then which one? No one thinks to really notice it, since they've never known a different world, but everyone has their own personal idea on the matter.

As a matter of fact, Touya and Touko both have _very_ strong and opposing viewpoints. Of course. Cheren silently muses that they're actually not very different, yet the twins never stop arguing about it — he's an idealist and she's a realist and apparently there can be no compromise, even though Touya actually just wishes to make his dreams come true and, deep down, Touko wishes reality were closer to ideal fairytales. (Thankfully, wishes are harmless in this world.)

As for Bel, she has absolutely no clue, though she tries to hide it under good cheer. She can't seem to make up her mind; she can't find a dream of her own but she isn't okay with reality the way it is, either. She can find no other purpose in her life than just to live it. For now, she makes do with just that, though Cheren doesn't know how long she'll be satisfied with this.

And Cheren... Cheren has a dream that he wants to make true, it just doesn't have any substance, any point. When asked, he says he'll beat all the Gym Leaders, collect their Badges, challenge the League and the Champion, because that's a thing to do. He just wants power, strength, even though he has no one to use it for — yet; since Homura wished to meet Madoka again and again and again, it shouldn't be long. But in the meantime, Cheren's dream is impossible to justify or explain to anyone else, his reality meaningless.

But that'll be fine as soon as he finds the person that can give his meaning back to him.


	3. desiderium

Contrary to what one might be expected to believe, suddenly having a male body required no adaptation time. After all, Cheren has been male for over fifteen years, now, he's used to it. Thinking of when he was Homura isn't weird either, because Homura had been a girl for about the same time, too; feeling ashamed to think about a body that was once his would make no more sense than to get flustered over the memory of bathing naked in the sea with his friends when they were four years old. Homura got menstruations, Cheren gets erections, and it doesn't feel especially strange that he's been through both in his life. Not any stranger than the sex change in the first place, anyway.

Having hormones is natural, common to all teens his age (and he now knows for a fact that girls do _not_ have it easier than boys), it sucks but it is nothing to be ashamed of. Waking up to sweatsoaked skin and filthy bedsheets is not unusual. It is always unpleasant, but Cheren has learned to accept it as a normal part of the general awkwardness that is teenagehood for everyone. It doesn't get particularly more or less frustrating just because he has been through it before in a different situation, with a different sex.

He cannot be held responsible for his subconscious, either, though still he is _never_ going to let Touko — or anyone else — know that some mornings he remembers dreaming of her naked legs around his waist, and he wishes she would stop wearing those shorts.

By which of course he means she should still wear something, just something else. Something less tight and short and generally distracting.

It would also help his recurring morning problems if she stopped chewing her lip and generally drawing attention to her mouth. He remembers some dreams about her using her mouth in absolutely inappropriate ways — he remembers those at the most malapropos times and with embarrassing clarity.

The silver lining to this annoying cloud is that Cheren, at least, isn't in love with her. Interested, yes, definitely, in the way any teenaged boy would be interested in _those legs_, but the attraction doesn't go past that. She is a friend, a good friend, and he does not need or want anything more from her.

Same goes for Bel and her precociously fully-developed hips and bouncy breasts and touchy-feely disposition.

They're just friends, and Cheren's libido is not going to distract him from his objective.


	4. serena ira

In Karakusa Town, Cheren finds confirmation that changing the world hasn't fixed it. There are bombs waiting to be set off here, too. He's always been on the pessimistic side of realistic and he doesn't like how that Team Plasma cult thing sounds.

Of course, the fact that the spokesman's face is absolutely expressionless and his followers look like dolls doesn't help. Homura seethes and Cheren actually reaches for his left wrist, his fingers finding a watch but itching for the memory of a gun handle. Touya tilts his head and Touko frowns at him, but he can't exactly tell them that he _remembers_ who — what — this is.

Kyubey and its brood, neatly tricked and blinded and ready to hatch into witches, or whatever its great plan requires this time.

The man that approaches the three of them is part of that flock, Cheren is sure of it; his eyes are vacant and he speaks too fast and he wants to fight them like he's searching for something (his soul maybe, or theirs). Homura files him away as some witch-girl; he feels just oddly familiar enough that she might have known him personally last time. Tomoe Mami, possibly, who never found out the truth of the Puellae Magi system last time, who was completely taken in by Kyubey's scheme until the last second.

Tomoe-san has shown, previously, to be both unable to handle psychological strain too well in times of crisis, and prone to finding herself in times of crisis; it's in Cheren's best interest to steer clear from her.

Predictably, Touya doesn't understand that, and when the man starts stalking him Touya stalks him down back, like it's his job to fix whatever it is that is clearly wrong with him. Cheren has noticed Touya has this sense of justice, which really just means he always feels obligated to force things to go how he thinks they should go.

Cheren really doesn't think even Touya could do anything to save Tomoe-san, but since he couldn't really explain his reasoning, he says nothing.


	5. credens justitiam

Touko seems to agree with him about Touya, though.

"He's just so damn nosy!" she fumes, munching down on the biscuit cone like it's personally insulted her. "Always _has_ to play hero like he's the only one in the world who can do it or something — like he can make a difference!"

The parlor clerk nods and smiles at her nervously; Cheren sighs and apologizes for her as he pays for the two ice-cream cones.

"What do you think you're doing? I can pay for myself! I've got money I earned from fighting on my own, I'm nobody's helpless little lady, got that, Mister Gentlemanly Knight? I swear, you're almost as bad as Touya!"

"And you are taking your frustration out on the wrong person."

She kicks him in the shins, but then again, that wild personality of hers is why he likes her in the first place.

The opposite, he knows, isn't necessarily true; Touko is always on his case about his stuck-up attitude, but he's never been sure whether that means he's her most or least favorite friend. Not that it would make that great of a difference, anyway: since Touya is in an entirely different category of his own (called Most Important Person In Touko's World And Probably Only One She Actually Genuinely Cares About), Cheren is only really competing with Bel, and the only thing Touko and Bel have in common is their gender. Cheren wonders if those two would even know what to talk about if they were left alone together without him or Touya to act as a buffer.

"Where _is_ your brother, anyway?" he asks while nibbling on the dessert, trying not to get any cream on his chin (which is egregiously difficult).

Touko snorts. "Off to play hero, what else? We heard something about that team of weirdoes being in town, it's like they've been stalking us since Karakusa. I thought I'd go to the Gym while Touya was off chasing them down, but of course the Leader is nowhere to be found either."

"So you're eating ice-cream."

"Hey, this is a delicacy. People come to Hiun City from all over Isshu just to have a taste of this."

It's overpriced and too sweet for his tastes. Cheren is however prevented from saying it and consequently getting kicked again by their Xtransceivers ringing.

It's Bel calling, in tears, saying something about her Munna and Team Plasma, and Touko starts sighing and chewing her out about being so weak as to let her Pokémon be robbed from her, but Cheren isn't listening to them. There's a little girl next to Bel, so small she's apparently standing on her tiptoes and clinging to Bel's arm for balance in order to peek into the Xtransceiver. Her free hand is rubbing Bel's back in a soothing gesture and she's saying, "Everything'll be fine, don't you worry, I'll protect you!" and her voice sounds so familiar it makes Cheren's world spin.

"Where are you two?" Homura asks, clipped, business-like tones betraying none of the hopeful roaring of her heart.

"By the docks right now," the little girl says, cheerful voice singing, "but we're gonna go look for Arti, he said he found the bad guys in one of the large avenues —"

"We'll be there," Homura says, and she's running before she's even hung up.

Unfortunately, even as she's still saying "_Whaat?_", Touko still has the time to catch Cheren's wrist. "We'll go together, no point getting separated in this crazy huge city," she grumbles with annoyance, her hand too warm around his wrist.

There's a girl in this world that has Madoka's voice and cheery smile and kind disposition and instant protective instinct, she's in this_ city_, she's approximately less than a kilometer away. Homura feels justified in having no desire to waste time.

But a part of Cheren grew up with a crush on Touko (only natural, given what a lively and gorgeous girl she's always been, even though they've always only been just friends), and that part of him is putting up a damned good fight against the part of Homura screaming why now, when Touko has never been touchy-feely with anyone (except her brother), why _now_ when she only wishes to activate her time-stopping artifact and run to Madoka.


	6. gradus prohibitus

Cheren wins over Homura in the end, though it helps that Touko simply does not let go of him and she's physically much stronger than he is.

They run as best they can in the crowded streets, but the party is still long over by the time they finally find that stupid building; Hiun City is, after all, the biggest city in Isshu.

Bel is standing in front of the building, with the girl. Cheren freezes when he catches sight of her again, but Touko doesn't seem to notice — she drops his hand just like that, naturally, carelessly, and sprints to them asking about Touya. On the periphery of Cheren's awareness, he vaguely hears Bel say something about Arti-san and the Gym, sees her looking sheepish, shy, embarrassed and Touko throwing her hands up in the air and leaving in a huff.

He's not paying much attention to them, though.

The little girl notices him staring, and it's all too perfect, her large eyes and warm smile and the way she's standing slightly in front of Bel, willing to put herself on the line to protect someone she's just met — even, damn it, the pigtails in her hair.

It's perfect when she stares right back at him and she opens her mouth and her voice is exactly how Homura remembers it — it's perfect until she chirps, mindlessly, "Yeah? Can I help you?"

Not a speck of recognition in that voice, in those eyes. Nothing special at all, not anything like the reaction of cosmic _familiarity_ Madoka displayed upon meeting Homura all of those second first-times.

Cheren is breathless, but it's just from the run; he's never been the athletic type in this world.

"Nothing," he says, with no particular tone. "Nothing at all. I was mistaken."

She blinks, but lets it go. He turns and leaves, without a backwards glance to either of the girls, and activates his watch as soon as he's turned the corner.

He's wasted enough time already.


	7. postmeridie

The West bridge was just raised, the East road is temporarily blocked; Cheren got to Raimon City in literally _no time_, but he was still too late by a hair. His watch does not have flowing sand like Homura's old magical hourglass did, but it works the same way — he can't rewind time yet, only stop it.

He's stuck here, losing time doing absolutely _nothing_. Homura may be used to it by now, it is still absolutely infuriating.

Bel even manages to catch up to him, a full day later. She finds him sulking in the Musical Hall, glaring at the Pokémon onstage in their ridiculous costumes.

"What was that about? Yesterday, with Iris-san," she asks during the break between two performances. "Even for you, that was strange, you kinda weirded her out."

"I mistook her for someone I know," he tries to explain while she buys him some pop-corn he wouldn't have asked for in a thousand restarted lifetimes. "Well, not _know_, but someone I've... heard of, if you will."

"Oh." She smiles, but it's a great deal weaker than her usually blinding grin. "Well. You could've stayed with us. I'd have introduced you two, you'd like her, she's really nice. We spent all day together, she helped me, protected me and stuff when she found me all alone in Hiun City. It's a big city, isn't it?"

A big city to feel alone in. Homura pretended not to see, but Cheren remembers how Bel had been crying when she called him and Touko.

"... She helped you get back your Munna," he mutters, stating the obvious and feeling like an idiot on top of a jerk and hating it. "Is that right?"

She nods. After a pause, she finally looks up, slowly, timidly. "... Cheren?"

"Yeah?"

"... I heard the twins are at the Gym right now, so, you're in no hurry, right? Think we could hang out a bit?"

Madoka is somewhere out there and Homura has no lead anymore, no time to waste; but just because Homura only ever had one real friend does not mean Cheren should push away the ones he's had for his whole life.

Besides, as Bel said, there isn't much he can do while the roads are blocked.

"Sure," he says, and tries to smile at her. "Have you gone to the amusement park yet?"


	8. terror adhaerens

"I was so scared," Bel says, in a very, very small voice. "So, so scared, completely useless."

Cheren shifts in the opposite seat, wonders if he should scoot over and sit next to her. Under any normal circumstances, he would do it without a second's thought, because it's Bel, his cheerful, scatterbrained childhood friend; but she isn't looking like Bel right now. She's reminding him of someone else, harsher, sharper, less alive.

"That's not true, Bel," he murmurs. "You may not be a terribly gifted trainer —" (She snorts.) "— but you're brave. Remember that little girl you helped get her Pokémon back?"

"Yeah," she mutters, dejectedly. "That was all just for show. I could pretend to be brave and dependable for her at that time because she trusted me, because I was the older one, because it was nothing to do with me. It's easy to be heroic when it's not about you. But that time, when they took Munny..." She hugs the pink and purple little monster to her chest, eyes closed tight.

So much for a sempai. But she's got the compassion, the maternal protective instinct and the stubbornness, by the truckloads... as well as the skill that's impressive at first glance but just not-quite-enough when it counts, the inability to get any stronger than she already is.

"That makes no sense," Cheren says, trying to derail his own train of thought. "It's more heroic to take risks to help someone else, it's selfless and admirable —"

"That was only because I didn't care. It wasn't my Pokémon. I didn't care if things turned ugly, if we made those people angry and they did bad stuff to it. It wasn't mine."

She stares in the distance, her round little chin propped on her Munna's forehead as it snuggles into the crook of her neck. Of course she just had to get herself a dream-eater Pokémon, for God's sake, as if she wasn't already lacking dreams enough.

"It's just as well I'm not strong enough to be a good savior, I guess," she muses, dryly. "Since it turns out I don't even want to." She turns to face Cheren, finally look him in the eye. "Someone else can do that, right? You, Touya, Touko, you guys go on to the League. I don't care about the badges. You become a heroic Champion if you like, Cheren, but I'm through with this." She smiles, wry and cheerless, as the wheel comes to a stop and their car touches the ground.

"Got it," Cheren murmurs, standing. "See you around then, Bel."

Then he goes to the Gym, because the twins must be done devastating the Gym Leader by now and just because Bel is leaving the race doesn't mean _he_'s willing to be left behind too.

So he was wrong about who was Tomoe Mami here, but his original decision not to get entangled with her this time around still stands. Cheren's world isn't half as dangerous as Homura's, so with any luck, Bel should be able to handle herself, and anyway there's nothing he can do, nothing Homura was ever able to do for her.

Even the first time, Tomoe Mami never really wanted to be what she was, to do what she did; it's actually good, in some way, that she has the possibility to renounce her choice and give up this time.

Cheering up is what Bel _does_; she'll come around. He cannot afford to waste time waiting for her anymore.

There's no reason for him to feel this bad.


	9. venari strigas

Even with this realization, the possibility that the man — N, he said his name was, which only Cheren seems to find odd and eerie for a name — was once a witch is still just as likely, if not more. Not Tomoe Mami and probably not Oktavia, nor Charlotte... but, a couple timeloops ago, Homura once fought a witch whose Barrier was a black and white maze with almost religious, almost cultist symbols everywhere. It seems an appropriate match.

Things have been changed, switched around, replaced, but people are still the same persons, with similar mindsets and fates; however — thankfully — this new world isn't so dangerous that they aren't able to fight it.

And Cheren likes the idea of fulfilling his own dreams better than being granted a wish.


	10. conturbatio

Experiencing male arousal when he once was a female suddenly does become an actual problem the morning he wakes up with the clear memory of having dreamt of _Madoka_. Which is not that surprising in itself, but his erection, and the fact that thinking about her again does nothing to chase it away — quite the _contrary_, in fact... are. Not only surprising, but also a very, _very big deal_.

Cheren is a stoic young man. He takes in stride what nature throws at him. But this is a much worse experience than the first time he got hard while staring at Touko's legs, even worse than when his wet dreams started gravitating around — of all people — N.

Cheren is a very stoic young man, much more stoic than, say, Touya. For instance, Touya, unlike Cheren, would certainly throw a fit if, like Cheren, the pretty girl friends of his wet dreams were suddenly replaced by a stranger, not only odd and older but _male_. Cheren, for his part, just stared at the ceiling the first time, processing the idea for a few minutes, shrugged, and figured that was also part of being a teenager: hormones, and curiosity. That N dude _is_ good-looking, after all, objectively speaking.

Since Cheren does not really know the man personally and does not meet him as often as he does the girls, it's not quite as embarrassing, but it is, for the very same reason, a thousand times more bizarre instead.

Much further from the traumatizing end of the weirdness spectrum than the current Madoka debacle, though. Unlike his dreams of Bel and Touko, this has only little to do with the physiological aspects — what's more important is that he has to face, for the first time, the understanding that Homura's feelings were not, in fact, as entirely platonic as she managed to convince herself.

This sheds an entirely different light on his actions — on his interacting with Madoka — on _Homura_'s relationship with her, on _his_ relationship with —

the thought makes him feel sick. For the first time in his life, he curses his over-analytical mind and inability to take anything at face value.

He feels his erection throbbing between his legs and wants to vomit, can't bear the mere_ idea_ of masturbating to the thought of Madoka, pure, innocent Madoka, his best friend.

Shower, he decides, with almost surgical coldness of thought. He really doesn't feel like standing up — really, he'd rather just find a cave to bury himself in forever and never resurface to the world — but it's really the only solution.

A long, very long, very cold shower.

Even that's not enough and in the end he needs to get off anyway, but he does it quick and too rough, choking on water and stray thoughts he curses himself for. He even tries to think of Touko, Bel, even of N, even of _Touya_ — he manages to conjure up fantasies of N's pale limbs, of Bel's soft breasts in his hand, of Touya's hard body slammed up against the tiled wall, of Touko's hot mouth too busy licking him up to do anything like smile — but when he finally comes, with a scrape of nails and a jerk in his palm, seeing white and black, it's still Madoka's smile that's burned on his retinae.

He's sobbing, but it's not like anyone could tell under the spray of water.


	11. umbra nigra

It's hard _(ha)_ to handle, of course; for a normal teenage boy like Cheren, it might have been too much. Hell, even for Cheren it is too much — but Homura, for her part, has been through much worse before.

Cheren knows surreal is something you get used to, knows for a fact, knows from experience that it is something _he_ can get used to.

So after a long while of sitting still on the floor of the shower stall, detachedly analyzing how the icy water feels like it's biting at his hot skin as it rinses away his sticky mess, eventually, he sighs, pulls himself to his feet and turns off the shower. He balls up his soiled bedsheets real tight before dumping them in the Pokémon Center laundry basket, and tries not to be pissed off at the nurse's obvious amusement. He's only a normal, healthy young man like any other; it just so happens that the girl he dreams of is magical. Small differences.

It's not like the nurse knows of his particular circumstances, anyway, and it is easy to ignore the little voice in his head calling him a repressed lesbian, laughing hysterically and sounding a lot like Touko in the process.

As a matter of fact, the voice also sounds a lot like Sakura Kyouko, actually, which is more than a little ridiculous and almost laughable in a terrible, pot-kettle manner —

The realization is like a slap in Cheren's face.

That's opening an entire different can of worms altogether.


	12. amicae carae meae

He hates the thought the very second it's formed, but he can't dismiss it. It's taken him an absurdly long time to notice but now that he has it's so _obvious_, so crystal-clear, so evidently true.

It wasn't just Bel: he's known _all_ of his childhood friends for longer than any of them could suspect.

Sakura Kyouko. Still a girl, still ties up her hair in wild ponytails and still wears denim shorts — significantly more open and less aggressive, but it's _her_, almost copy-pasted into this new universe.

And then, Maki Sayaka. She is a boy this time, and much quieter (which might explain how long it took Homura to recognize her) but she's still her dynamic self, and if anything the hero-complex has only gotten worse in this life.

Whoever writes the laws of interdimensional alternate selves must have had a blast with the two of them. In fact, in retrospect, Homura finds it a little unsettling how well they get along in this world, though to Cheren they're just a pair of close but squabbling siblings. _Twins_, actually.

Homura seems to remember that they died together, last time; Kyouko sacrificed herself so Sayaka wouldn't die alone. Homura wonders, fleetingly, if that's why this time they were born together, too.

She really ought not to feel this jealous of them.

But she doesn't linger on the thought, because while Touya is Maki Sayaka and Touko is Sakura Kyouko, Bel is Tomoe Mami and Cheren is Akemi Homura and that's the entire team of Puellae Magi as they gathered in some timelines, with the lone absence of _Madoka_ because it _was not Iris-san_. And that can't be.

She has to be somewhere, she always was, she has to be close by, too, if the other three are _Cheren's childhood friends_.

Homura _wished_ to meet her again.


	13. incertus

She has to be there_ somewhere_.

Cheren keeps going, Homura keeps looking; or maybe it's the other way around.

Cheren meets the man he had been aiming for for all his life (previously, anyway) and doesn't feel anything, not an ounce of accomplishment even as the Champion of Isshu stops and looks at him, walks with him, talks to him.

"What about after? Become the Champion, and what then?" Adeku-san asks him. His voice is grave and his eyes wise, as if he's seen this a thousand times, but there's something else that Homura recognizes for having experienced it herself, more times than she would have liked: loss.

But they're not the same. Cheren is not the same. Cheren doesn't give a crap what the Champion went through and thinks he's about to crash head-first into as well, because they're not the same — unlike Adeku, Cheren can avoid this, if he hurries, if he's fast enough he can avoid losing Madoka yet again and then everything will be fine, just fine, finally.

Somehow Adeku doesn't even need to touch him to stop him, he grabs him and hold him back with his low voice and tired eyes alone. "What is it exactly you're really looking for?" he asks, and just like that Cheren trips.

He's looking for Madoka, but he doesn't know who she's become in this world. He's looking for a little girl, but he doesn't know what she is this time. He's looking for his most, his only important person in all worlds, but he doesn't know her. He's looking for a friend who doesn't know him, he's looking for a witch that can't be allowed to exist, he's looking for a promise that he needs to fulfill or he's going to unravel, he's looking for a way to bring this infinite loop to an end and rest his head for a while, he's looking for —

Cheren can't answer, can't give just one answer, can't give any answer at all; and somehow that is even scarier than watching Madoka changing into a witch for the first time was. He looks away as Adeku-san smiles at him softly, sadly.

"Before wondering how you can achieve your goal," the Champion whispers, gently laying a large, strong hand on Cheren's watch-wearing wrist, "ask yourself why you want to."

He's doing this because Homura promised, but the person who promised and the person who asked and the world where it happened don't even really exist anymore. He doesn't even know anymore, if he's doing this for the world (which world?), for Madoka, for Homura or for himself.

But that doesn't really matter, does it — Homura had a reason. She can't have done all this for nothing, he can't give up now. And it doesn't matter either that he doesn't know how — he'll figure it out if he just keeps going, and if he fails Homura will just try again, until it _works_.

"I just — I need to get to the top," he says, because at the top is where it always happens, from the top he'll be able to see everything and find what he wants.

Adeku laughs and says he has all the time in the world. And it's true, but that doesn't mean the wild-horse beat of Cheren's heart slows down as he shakes off the too-warm hand and his own fingers clutch the time-traveling watch.

Just because you can stop and rewind it, doesn't mean that every second that ticks by isn't a second lost.

Cheren keeps looking; Homura keeps going.


	14. signum malum

Fittingly, it's almost the end of the world again when Homura finally finds its version of Madoka.

Although, actually, she's already met the counterpart. Several times. She just took a long, long time to realize she recognized her, and now she almost wishes she hadn't.

It takes all the self-control Cheren was brought up with for fifteen years and all the experience Homura was jaded with over a single endless month, all their combined fatalism and strength to fight for what they want, for Homura to accept it.

Because it means she's already failed, she was already too late when this world _started_.


	15. pugna cum maga

N is a green-haired, wide-eyed young man, tall and thin and jumpy. He gives off the aura of a child that didn't grow up for a long time until suddenly he did, too fast, too much, and he's still in the middle of dealing with it. He knows the world both too well and not at all, he sees one truth and strives for one ideal and is blinded by both.

His soul is still pure and uncorrupted, his Gem would be crystal clear if he had one, but at the same time he _is_ one of Kyubey's witches. All of his love and trust is only for Pokémon; in humans, he sees only monsters.

Madoka's innocence, her courage and fear, her strength and delicateness, her stubborn convictions and her need to fix everything by herself, all of that is still there in N, but her compassion for people has been ripped from him. He's not Kaname Madoka, the cheerful Puella Magi: he is Kriemhild Gretchen, the witch that ended the Earth to create a heaven free of grief.

Cheren burns with fury at the thought of what might have been done to him, how he must have been raised for this to happen — because Kyubey managed to get its paws on her right from the start this time, it's had N under its thumb since he was _born_. The things it must have done to Madoka to turn her into such a different person; the things Ghetis must have done to N.

Cheren misses Homura's guns with almost savage intensity.

So Cheren fought and fought and fought, Cheren forgot himself in order to track down Ghetis all across the country and could only find the poor souls he's tricked and reeled in (idealistic fanatics turned knights, girls turned magical turned witches); Cheren breezed through the Gyms and trampled down the Elite Four like it was just a formality to reach N, and in the end he is still too _late_.

Instead of Walpurgisnacht descending on the world, a golden castle rises from underground, and there's nothing Cheren can even do. Madoka doesn't ask Homura anything this time; N barely sees him.


	16. agmen clientum

N barely sees him, entirely focusing on Touya and Touko. Especially Touya. Sayaka.

Why Sayaka? Why always Sayaka?

Why do they all always focus on her? Mami, Kyouko, Madoka... Why did they keep telling her to reach for happiness when it only resulted in all the counterbalance misery dooming her — why do they now keep trying to pile all the responsibility upon Touya even though he's shaking under the pressure of it? Sayaka always aimed for too big, tried too hard — gave out too much happiness, asked for too great a miracle; Touya may be able to do what they're asking of him, but the aftershock will destroy him — the weight of the _world_ will crush him eventually.

Why do they never give up on Sayaka, why do they keep supporting her even though she's always _doomed_?

Why doesn't anyone ever cheer for Homura on the sideline?

Even now, she's still alone but still trying so hard, and it's no use and no one sees her until it's too late.

Why is she always the outsider? Even Bel finds something to do, manages to be useful without actually being there, people _remember_ her.

Cheren is _right there_ and no one even thinks to try handing him the mystical stones when they don't react to either Touya nor Touko; no one even imagines he might have a chance to awaken the dragons, to face the new Champion, to be a hero where his friends can't.

N doesn't even challenge him.


	17. decretum

(Madoka probably forgot about her this time, too. She always has.)


	18. anima mala

Kyubey learned facial expression this time. And as it turns out, even emotions, though only negative ones — and madness, but that only makes sense, for one of its kind. It still hasn't picked up compassion or, Arceus forbid, love, from Madoka.

Not a prophesied hero, Cheren isn't even allowed to battle it himself, much less beat it into the ground; he has no bullets to tear it to shreds with and see if it'll come back this time too, anyway. He wishes he did, burningly, but he summons all of his and Homura's self-control and he agrees to hand the monster over to the police instead, because this is just how things go in this world.

(But if the police let it escape, well. Cheren can't swear he won't make an exception to his lawful principles just in this one case.)

He'll escort Ghetis out with Adeku-san, he'll leave the heroes alone, give them some times to themselves. He will, in just a second.

Just, give him just a second.


	19. inevitabilis

He stops before reaching the door, turns back around, ignores Touko's surprised glance and tries to catch N's eye instead.

"Did I —" Cheren stops himself, rewords. "Are you saved?"

N blinks. "I... guess so." His eyes seem to have some trouble focusing on him. "I didn't... notice you there," he confesses, in his off-handed, haphazard way.

Of course not, Cheren thinks, Homura thinks.

"What are you going to do now?" s/he asks, because that's more important than _Are you leaving (me) (again.)?_

N tilts his head, with a vague smile and a glance to Touya. "I'm not sure. I can't stay here, I think; Touya needs to fulfill his dream."

"What about me," Cheren says, breathless, _What about me,_ Homura screams inside.

N smiles, and though it's vacant and a little off and the warmth and joyful energy aren't there, it's definitely bright and hopeful like Madoka, she's definitely in there somewhere, broken but not unfixable. "You, too!" she says. "That dream of yours, you have found its meaning, right? Then go grab it. I wish you luck," he says, and Cheren turns away before he breaks into tears.

_I've found you_, he thinks,_ there's no meaning if you leave._


	20. clementia

Cheren turns and walks away, leaving N behind; leaving him alone with Touya in the throne room. Next to him, Touko falters, hesitates — it's her twin and an eerie man who almost split the world in two, but it's also Sayaka and Madoka with the witchcraft purged out — so eventually, she follows Cheren's example and walks out in turn. Once out the door, she picks up her pace, leaves him lagging behind as she calls Bel. The girls sticking together, keeping the boy out of the loop; the Mami-sempai team of the first couple times around, not getting too close to the new, suspiciously well-informed girl that popped up out of nowhere. Even though they have both forgotten about it all, forgotten about who they all used to be, some things never change.

Cheren doesn't care. They're his friends, he's glad they're safe, but all Homura really cares about stayed behind in that room, and he couldn't do anything; he was far too late to protect Madoka from Kyubey and her own kindness this time.

Adeku-san's hand comes to rest on his shoulder and Cheren, for once, makes no move to push it away, because it's not pitying. If anything, it's asking for comfort, for reassurance, for a steady presence, as much as offering it. Adeku-san seems to understand, seems to feel the same...

"Will that boy be okay?"

There's so much personal concern in that voice that Cheren looks up at him. Then looks again, really _looks_ at him, and suddenly has to smother a nostalgic smile.

"Yeah. He said so; all we can do is trust him with this."

"Touya can do anything if he just puts his mind to it," Bel says, smiling sweetly on the Xtransceiver screen, and Touko interjects, fiercely, "I'll be there to kick his ass if he doesn't."

But Cheren wasn't talking about Touya; and from the melancholy look on Adeku-san's face, neither was he.

"Somehow," the strongest adult in the world mumbles, "he reminds me of a... a partner I once lost."

Close enough, Cheren muses. Some trainers do regard their Pokémon as their own children, after all.


	21. puella in somnio

Everyone hurries to leave the eerie empty castle, but Cheren lingers and lags behind. After all, if he had no problem accepting failure, giving up and moving on, he wouldn't be here (he wouldn't even be a _he_ in the first place).

"Wait," a voice calls after him; a deep, adult, male voice, all the same a voice he'll recognize across time and worlds.

Cheren is still in the process of turning around as N tumbles down the last golden step and stops behind him, and Cheren sees the movement of his hand to grab his sleeve. A grown-man's hand reaching for a boy's jacket sleeve down the stairs of a gigantic castle, not a little girl's hand reaching for a magical girl's uniform sleeve in a school hallway, but it's not off by far.

"— Akemi-san?" N whispers, green eyes wide and bewildered, and maybe it's only because Cheren has never seen them from this close before but he thinks they look just a little less dead and empty than before.

"... Homura is fine," Cheren mutters, throat dry because (it's no use, it's over, it's too late.)

"It is you! I knew it! Homura-chan, it's me —"

"I know."

And finally, Madoka smiles at her; and countless time loops, a world-skip and a sex change can't change the fact that Homura always had a weak heart prone to weeping like a child.


	22. sis puella magica!

They sit on the stairs, a completely senseless thing to do when there are easily a hundred rooms in the castle with cosy chairs and probably even beds, but even Cheren doesn't think of it. They sit and talk, share what they remember and piece together their bits of memories, and Homura can finally start guessing at what must have happened, finally understand.

She wasn't the one who made the reset, this time, it wouldn't have changed the world this much. Madoka made a wish. (_Again_, because she just _always has to try —_) And subconsciously or not, for some absurd, so very Madoka-like reason, she wished to have strength, to be a _hero_ — to be a _boy_.

But in their original world, boys couldn't be Puellae Magi, but she made the pact and had her wish granted —

Cheren wonders if Kyubey's expression finally shifted as it watched Madoka's wish distort and break reality and retroactively change the rules, the very fabric of their entire world. No magical girls or witches anymore, dreams replacing wishes, the grass and sea and sky filling with furry creatures that are actually capable of feeling and sharing real bonds with humans. Not everything is perfect here either — Madoka couldn't fix everything this easily — but even Team Plasma was definitely a substantial improvement on the original entropy problem. Homura, Cheren, can work with this — could have — did, she _did_. She did her best.

(But Madoka didn't wait for her.  
>She just <em>has<em> to try and fix things herself, even when it means sacrificing herself, _every time_.)

"Why a _boy_," Cheren eventually asks, although the annoyance takes precedence over the interrogation in his tone of voice and it sounds more like an assertion than a demand. "You of all people should know traditional gender roles don't apply. You could have just wished to be a hero_ine_, or simply powerful. I can personally testify that you don't always make the most sensible of wishes, but surely you could have thought of that. Unless you_ did_ realize the repercussions it would have and purposely —"

"No!" N's cheeks are a little pink. "... No, I didn't think that far. I, uhm," he says, and suddenly there's that hesitating voice lilt and that little glance aside that are so entirely Kaname Madoka that Homura wonders how she never saw it before. "... I just... I thought, if I were a boy, it would be okay?"

Cheren isn't quite sure what he's aiming at.

"But then it turns out you became a boy too!" N laughs that little fake laugh that utterly fails to hide the self-deprecation and has always broken Homura's heart a little more every single time she has heard it. Cheren is hearing it for the first time in this world, with this voice, but he doesn't like it one bit more.

"What does that even mean? What would be okay?"

"... I'm sorry." N smiles, sheepishly, desperately. "We're friends, right? I'm glad we are! Sayaka-chan — Touya-kun — is a great friend too, but you're my best friend, Homura-chan! That's enough for me!"

Inside Cheren's soul, Homura's heart soars.

"Would you," he whispers, slowly standing up, "are you by chance..."

N's face twists and he looks away. "... It was always a joke, you know?" he whispers. "Sayaka-chan, she was only joking. Hitomi-chan, too. Eh, I wonder how's this world's Hitomi-chan?" he suddenly pipes up, eyes distant.

"That doesn't matter right now," Cheren snaps, his voice perhaps a little shrill, a little shaking. "What do you _mean?_ What would be okay?"

"You and me," Madoka whimpers, very softly, almost miserably. "Girls — don't... it's, ha, how did Hitomi-chan put it... forbidden love, isn't it? So I thought, if I were a boy — but if Homura-chan's a boy too —"

"You fool," Homura says. "You _fool_," but her voice breaks and her legs give out before she can start screaming and shaking sense into Madoka, and Cheren collapses on the stairs next to N again. "It's okay," he whispers, weakly. "It _is_ okay, you absolute dunce..."

N's eyes are almost as wide and bright as when he was Madoka. "... Is that true?"

"I swear."

N blushes hotly and starts stuttering, "O-_oh_, then, I, uh, you — Ho-homura-chan — hum, Cheren-kun, I, _hummmm_ —" so Cheren just grabs his hand and presses his face into his shoulder.

It's strange, naturally. N is much taller than Madoka, than Homura and Cheren, his body is male and so is Cheren's, and they've never touched before in these forms, never been this close — and yet still it feels heartrendingly familiar. Maybe it's the warmth.

N makes a little choked squeal like a newly-hatched Chillarmy and wraps his arms around Cheren, clutching him close, holding on to him; and even though — or perhaps because — Homura has never experienced anything like this before, it feels like finally coming home after the journey has ended.


	23. scaena felix

Personalities, bonds and fate stick to people through rewritings of the universe as if intrinsic, innate traits, but it seems upbringing does manage to change things a little, just sometimes.

Kyouko never managed to get through to Sayaka, but Touya has had Touko by his side for his whole life and perhaps with each other's support, they can both withstand this. Bel's been displaying more and more self-confidence and honest cheer, Mami might actually figure out a way to live her life to the fullest. It seems the flood of frustrated emotions finally made Kyubey's mind go bonkers. N will probably agree to see Adeku-san again. And Cheren's definitely found the reason for his desire for strength.

In N's embrace, Cheren feels uncharacteristically optimistic, which cannot be a good sign for his sanity, but... he can worry about it later.

"You were about to leave, earlier, right?"

"Hum, yes, but — I can change my plans. It's not like I actually have any plans, really, or that there's anything for me to do out there, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision kind of thing."

"Hm. Well, you know what else I think?"

"Hm?"

"I think you're allowed some vacation, Mr Hero."

"... But you're coming with me, right?"

"Your wish is my command, Your Majesty — of course, you dummy."


	24. Connect

Later, Cheren also feels the need to clarify: "So, you seriously _rewrote our world just so you could date me without problem_?"

N just giggles nervously, "But you were worth it!", and Cheren figures he can let that pass.

N's arms enclose him from behind, soft and warm and all long hair and tall and gangly body and awkward and undeniably male, only a little Madoka but all N; yet Cheren reclines against him and knows he can do with this.

It's not like he misses the pink too hard, after all.

He tilts his head back to stare at N's upside-down face and curious green eyes, and asks, "Are you fine like this?"

N tilts his head to the side like a confused schoolgirl. "Of course. The world has been saved, I got my wish, what more could I want?"

Cheren kisses him, awkward angle and all.

"... Oh, you mean that?" N resumes when they part like nothing at all happened (though his cheeks are pink again). "Well, I'm fine with this, too. Completely fine. Really."

"Even though we're both boys thanks to your ridiculous wish?"

"You said it doesn't matter."

"But what do you think?"

"... I think it doesn't matter, too. We're good like this. Aren't we? What do _you_ think, Ake — uh, Homu — ah, Cheren-kun?"

Cheren smiles, a little wry and crafty but a honest smile nonetheless.

"I think so, too."

The noise the watch makes as it's crushed into pieces under his heel is more satisfying than he ever thought it could be.


End file.
